Replay doesn't come into play in opener

Padres manager Bud Black fields questions, many of them having to do with the implementation of an expanded instant-replay system, before Sunday night's opener against the Los Angeles Dodgers at Petco Park.
— Peggy Peattie

Padres manager Bud Black fields questions, many of them having to do with the implementation of an expanded instant-replay system, before Sunday night's opener against the Los Angeles Dodgers at Petco Park.
— Peggy Peattie

The first batter of the first Major League Baseball game played this season in this hemisphere, Los Angeles Dodgers leadoff Carl Crawford, flipped his bat to the ground and took a couple steps toward first base. Instead of confirming ball four, though, home-plate umpire Fieldin Culbreth called Crawford out on a check-swing third strike.

Crawford shot such a look at Culbreth. But nothing more.

And there it was, an immediate example of what’s not covered by instant-replay, the use of which has been expanded by huge measure for the 2014 season. Balls and strikes – but not much of anything else -- remain the absolute, unquestioned, indisputable domain of the umpire.

While the Padres and Dodgers kicked off the season with the first game outside of Australia, the contest did not provide the first official test of the instant-replay system that’s been almost the all-consuming talk of baseball throughout the winter and spring. There really weren't any plays to even suggest the possibility.

But, for the first time, it was there if needed.

“This is historic, a historic day for baseball, to have this in place,” said Padres manager Bud Black. “We’re all waiting to see how it truly plays out. There’ll be a learning curve in a lot of areas on this. But I think the players and coaches are ready for this. It’s a good thing.”

That the Padres and Dodgers were playing on national television, in prime time, brought even more focus to the interaction between the two dugouts and four umpires. Instant replays were used in spring-training games, but on a far more limited basis and relatively infrequently, since MLB had not set up its eye-in-the-skyscraper system in New York to handle challenges and reviews from the various ballparks.

Over the entire course of 30 Cactus League games, Black issued just two challenges, overturning one umpire’s decision on a close call at first base. The dugout staff was advised by the Padres’ baseball-operations staff, which watched the replay system, to take his case to the ump.

“it was a different situation in spring,” said Black. “We’ll see. It’ll be baptism under fire, right away, but but we have a little bit of experience with some of the mechanics we worked on in spring training on our end, what we do.

“The technology part of it is under control as far as communication from our people upstairs to our dugout.”

The Dodgers were unsuccessful in the one call they had referred to replay. Echoing Black, L.A. manager Don Mattingly said he’s comfortable with the technology involved, enough so that he thinks the system will keep skippers from running onto the field to argue calls.

At the same time, the replays surely will become part of the game strategy for managers. Each is given one challenge per game, and if it’s used successfully, his team gets a second challenge.

“It depends who’s coming up, how many outs you have and what are you arguing,” said Mattingly, asked what factors might compel him to challenge a call as early as the second inning. “If you have Hanley (Ramirez) and Gonzo (Adrian Gonzalez) coming up, and if you’re right and have the bases loaded with one out or something, you might be able to break the game open right there. So that may be a situation you try it.

“If you have two outs and (pitcher) Josh Beckett’s coming up, it may not be worth it in the second, where your pitcher’s up and you don’t really have a good chance of scoring a run anyway. So it just depends on the game and who you have coming up.”